Thursday, April 12, 2007

Office Go-Karting adventure

So my office arranged an after-hours activity - we were to go racing go-karts on an indoor track. The event was scheduled, the venue was selected, the hype and testosterone started early. All of us selected fake driver names, then carpooled over to the track and excitedly waited our turn.

Our group was kind of large, so we were split into two groups of about 7 drivers. Group one would drive for 3 minutes, then group two would drive. This alternated until both groups had 3 sessions on the track. The really fun part of this was that while the other group was driving, we were able to watch them from a catwalk that straddled the track.

During the first race, I figured I would test the limits of the field operator - we were told not to crash into the other drivers, but each car was equipped with this handy bumper that went completely around the car. I figured that a few bumps to get past someone should be fine, and if not, the operator would surely flag me and I would settle down. Instead, what happened is the operator flagged another one of the drivers. So I merrily caused mayhem unabated for the duration of that race.

I must say, that was a good time.

During our second race, the operator was no longer confused. Instead of flagging me, he hopped into a car, and started driving agressively against me - ramming my car, etc. If the intended effect was to get me to settle down, it didn't really work right away. My first reaction was 'this operator is awesome! I really like driving against him!' But after a lap or two I finally took the hint and decided to settle down.

For the third and final race, I planned to be a polite driver. No bumping other cars (even if they slammed on the brakes in a corner, which did happen a few times.) As luck would have it, I managed to get a lot of time on the track where I was not faced with traffic. But the damage was already done. Even though I avoided every car during that outing, I was already branded the track villian. Lucky for me, nobody was really taking me seriously and it was all in good fun.